Penguin Island eBook

The monks of his convent, finding in his cell Greek
books which they could not read, imagined them to
be conjuring-books, and denounced their too learned
brother as a wizard. Aegidius Aucupis fled, and
reached the island of Ireland, where he lived for
thirty studious years. He went from monastery
to monastery, searching for and copying the Greek and
Latin manuscripts which they contained. He also
studied physics and alchemy. He acquired a universal
knowledge and discovered notable secrets concerning
animals, plants, and stones. He was found one
day in the company of a very beautiful woman who sang
to her own accompaniment on the lute, and who was
afterwards discovered to be a machine which he had
himself constructed.

He often crossed the Irish Sea to go into the land
of Wales and to visit the libraries of the monasteries
there. During one of these crossings, as he remained
during the night on the bridge of the ship, he saw
beneath the waters two sturgeons swimming side by side.
He had very good hearing and he knew the language
of fishes. Now he heard one of the sturgeons
say to the other:

“The man in the moon, whom we have often seen
carrying fagots on his shoulders, has fallen into
the sea.”

And the other sturgeon said in its turn:

“And in the silver disc there will be seen the
image of two lovers kissing each other on the mouth.”

Some years later, having returned to his native country,
Aegidius Aucupis found that ancient learning had been
restored. Manners had softened. Men no longer
pursued the nymphs of the fountains, of the woods,
and of the mountains with their insults. They
placed images of the Muses and of the modest Graces
in their gardens, and they rendered her former honours
to the Goddess with ambrosial lips, the joy of men
and gods. They were becoming reconciled to nature.
They trampled vain terrors beneath their feet and
raised their eyes to heaven without fearing, as they
formerly did, to read signs of anger and threats of
damnation in the skies.

At this spectacle Aegidius Aucupis remembered what
the two sturgeons of the sea of Erin had foretold.

BOOK IV. MODERN TIMES: TRINCO

I. MOTHER ROUQUIN

Aegidius Aucupis, the Erasmus of the Penguins, was
not mistaken; his age was an age of free inquiry.
But that great man mistook the elegances of the humanists
for softness of manners, and he did not foresee the
effects that the awaking of intelligence would have
amongst the Penguins. It brought about the religious
Reformation; Catholics massacred Protestants and Protestants
massacred Catholics. Such were the first results
of liberty of thought. The Catholics prevailed
in Penguinia. But the spirit of inquiry had penetrated
among them without their knowing it. They joined
reason to faith, and claimed that religion had been
divested of the superstitious practices that dishonoured
it, just as in later days the booths that the cobblers,
hucksters, and dealers in old clothes had built against
the walls of the cathedrals were cleared away.
The word, legend, which at first indicated what the
faithful ought to read, soon suggested the idea of
pious fables and childish tales.